There will be a familiar face roaming the sidelines at Columbia football games next season as Chip Bilderback returns to the program to take over as head coach after one year away, sources confirmed to the C-P.
Bilderback left Columbia following the 2023 season to be closer to his family in Monroe, La., where he served as head coach at St. Frederick in 2024. The Warriors finished the season 8-3 with a Region 2-1A title – the school’s first district championship since 1996.
Bilderback’s wife, Missy, served as the head women’s basketball coach at Louisiana-Monroe for two seasons, and she was named the new head coach at Southern Miss, her alma mater, Sunday.
While at Columbia, Bilderback amassed a 69-12 record in six seasons, winning a state championship in 2021 and making a state championship appearance in 2023. The Wildcats won district titles in 2019, 2021 and 2023 under Bilderback with at least one playoff win in each of his six years as head coach.
Prior to his first tenure leading the Wildcats, Bilderback went 16-8 in two seasons at Perry Central.
The Wildcats went 8-4 with a Region 7-4A title and a trip to the second round of the Class 4A playoffs in 2024 under Lance Pogue, who left Columbia to assume the same role at Brandon.
